Lifestyle

Gowon At 85: My Recollections

Published

4 years ago

December 4, 2019

The Ogina Bereton
In 1971, Nigerian Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Yakubu Gowon, visited Rivers State. Commander Alfred Diete-Spiff, pioneer military governor of Rivers who made me his first Commissioner for Finance, 1968-1973, made me Chairman of the Reception Committee. During this visit, General Gowon said he wanted to inspect the riverine.
At the Marine Base, we boarded the Niger Delta Enterprise. The itinerary was to reach the Degema Division before heading for the Brass Division with Twon Brass as our final destination. But on leaving Degema our boat ran aground in low tide, leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere. We were in a panic. What would the world say if anything happened to General Gowon while he was our guest? His predecessor, General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi, was abducted and killed while being hosted by Col. Francis Fajuyi, the Western Region governor. It was a cruel fate that our August visitor should pass the night in the creek exposed to every conceivable hazard.
But to our surprise, it was General Gowon himself who was cheering us to be of good spirit. As a good fella he made light-hearted jokes to relax us. An exemplary leader in the grand old tradition, he could have called for a helicopter to rescue him but chose to pass the night in the boat with us. The tide finally returned in the morning and we fired up for Nembe where we lunched in Commander Diete-Spiff’s house before heading for Twon Brass.
We reached Twon Brass at night only to run into a bigger problem. The two speed boats conveying our provision from Port Harcourt were yet to arrive due to engine problems. So what was the Commander-in-Chief going to eat and drink? We would be tempting fate giving him the brown well-water.
Once more, it was General Gowon who told us not to worry. How could anyone fail to smile back when he flashed those disarming smiles? His bonhomie, witty jokes and easy manners were simply infectious and we soon put a great setback behind us. We returned to Port Harcourt in the morning by sea. Till date, General Gowon is the only Nigerian Head of State or President who bothered to tour the creeks and see, for himself, what poverty looks like.
The boat incident was an eye opener for Commander Diete-Spiff who announced he was building a new boat for Rivers. His envisaged craft should be stately enough for any visiting Head of State. He was designing it himself and, for one year, he seriously toiled away. We soon got used to greeting him with the question, “How’s your boat, now?” His usual response, “I have cancelled it but I’m starting a new one.” But behind his back we had a good laugh.
A day came when he surprised his critics. He said his boat was ready and curiosity was the better of us. It was the scratching of the head as he lectured us on the highly complex and mathematical sketches. Our respect for him soared. Commander Diete-Spiff built his boat in Holland christening her Ogina Bereton; meaning God has decided.
When we were overthrown in 1975 the Ogina Bereton was seized and taken to Lagos. The Federal Government refused to return it, even when it was established as state property, rather than Commander Diete-Spiff’s personal boat as alleged. It was given to the Nigerian Navy that refurbished it abroad at a cost far higher than what it took to build it. Rivers people were never compensated. Eventually, the boat that Commander Diete-Spiff built was taken out to the sea and sunk.
How Minorities Dominated Military
Deductive calculation, inference and an open mind are the watchwords when analysing General Gowon’s legacy as Head of State, 1966-1975. A northern Christian from the minority Angas tribe, he had little chance of advancing in the First Republic.
The Macpherson Constitution of 1951 could have created more regions instead three. Unfortunately, the three major tribes engaged the regions as their private properties. In the Eastern Region the majority Igbo tribe under Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and his National Council of Nigerian Citizen (NCNC) excluded their regional minorities. In the Western Region the Yoruba, under Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his Action Group (AG) committed the same sin. And in the Northern Region the Hausa/Fulani group, under Sir Ahmadu Bello and his Northern People’s Congress (NPC) also excluded their minorities.
Political exclusion forced the minorities to demand for their own alternate states only for the majorities to also oppose that. The Igbo supported state creation for Northern and Western minorities while resisting same for their Eastern minorities. The Yoruba favoured state creation for Eastern and Northern minorities but never for their Western minorities. And the Hausa/Fulani wanted states for Eastern and Western Regions, but not for their Northern minorities. This created a “negative consensus” among the majorities who knew what to do to liberate their minorities but refused to do it.
The minorities responded to the highly circumscribed political space permitted them in two ways. One, they established their own political parties. And two, they massively enlisted into the military, one of few government institutions that was open to them, but which was of little interest to the majorities. It was an accident of history that Gowon and his fellow northern minorities dominated the non-commissioned ranks of the unattractive military that turned out the proverbial rejected stone.
Following the two coups of 1966, it was Gowon, a Lieutenant Colonel, who was made Head of State as the most senior northern officer. His emergence brought the live-and-let-die rule of the majorities to a dramatic end. On May 27 1967, he created twelve states out of the existing four regions. By so doing, he saved Nigeria from total disintegration as the Tiv Riots of 1964 and the Isaac Boro rebellion of 1966 left none in doubt.
General Gowon prosecuted the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) to stop Nigeria from disintegrating. But he aptly realised Nigeria could still disintegrate under an unworkable peace. Europe imploded into the Second World War when an unworkable peace was imposed on a defeated Germany at the end of the First World War. If post-war Nigeria disintegrated, the majorities capable of surviving independently would bring their weak minorities under their suzerainties.
These lessons were on General Gowon’s mind influencing him not to treat the Igbo as conquered people. He favoured a policy of “No Victor and No Vanquished” at the end of the war to make national reconciliation possible. I end my tribute to this great general, on his 85th birthday, by recalling an incident that confirmed his anxiety for reconciliation.
General Gowon’s Anger
As Commander Diete-Spiff’s joint Commissioner for Economic Development and Reconstruction, and Information, 1973-1975, I initially conceived the East-West Road as state road. But paucity of funds forced me to convert it to a Trunk A road by bringing on board the other littoral states of South Eastern, Mid-Western and Lagos. Trunk A status meant the Federal Government would fund it.
We then submitted a joint project application to the Federal Government. But on the day the Supreme Military Council (SMC) was to take a decision on it disaster struck. Somebody jokingly asked my governor, “Commander, everyone in Port Harcourt is talking about this East-West Road; what do you need it for?” He joked back…
General Gowon cancelled the East-West Road to make national reconciliation possible. But when presented with a higher patriotic argument on (1) What the road meant not just to the Niger Delta minorities but for the country as a whole. (2) Making it easier for quick deployment of troops to protect critical oil facilities in the event of foreign invasion, and (3) Opening up the region for mechanised farming as the 1959 World Bank report projected the region could feed West Africa with swamp rice; he was flexible enough to reinstate and approve it a year later.
General Gowon could only be sarcastic when he recently said that his only mistake while in power was not allocating land to himself. But I stand to say that by not allocating land to himself, he set a rare example. Unfortunately, his successors used their official positions to allocate resources to themselves. Secondly, General Gowon also set a positive example for the African youth. I was a visiting scholar in the University of East Africa at Makerere and saw how Africa celebrated this handsome and dedicated hero who, at a very young age, held his country together.
His only mistake was in not handing over power to civilians in 1975. Under pressures from entrenched interests, General Gowon delayed, leading to his overthrow. But this does not deplete the fact that he courageously created the twelve states thereby liberating the minorities from the monolithic regions. Call that the first restructuring. What is now left is to carry out a massive devolution of power and resources through constitutional means so that the 36 states can prevail in areas they have comparative advantage and remit tax to the center.
Prof. Ekpebu is a pioneer member of the Rivers State Executive Council.

By: Lawrence Ekpebu

Health

Getting Trimmed Naturally

Published

6 months ago

November 1, 2023

The Tide

There are a lot of misconceptions about weight gain.
The first is that weight gain comes from extra calories we do consume that we do not expend. Experts say we eat too much and exercise little. So if one get fatter, then, surely he or she must be eating too much.
The other misconception is that once we cut our food, then, we will naturally become trimmed. All these are hinged on the diet theory, which only works for some time.
Over the past 40 years, studies have shown that you can not get clinically significant effect from cutting down on your calories. Even though experts are saying that sloth is responsible for weight gain- they overlook one basic truth that dieting only works for a short period.
The new study that seems to break those myths about body fat is now revealing some stunning facts. The kind of food we eat makes us fat. Two scientists at University of Pennsylvania, Mitchell Lazar and Cardiologist Allan Sniderman at McGill University, all in the United States have shown that food that we eat often makes us pack in flesh. These include bread, plain baked potatoes, and plain pasta, rice, sweet corn. They confirmed that fatty foods are not the enemy but easily digested carbohydrates, while steak, burgers, cheese or sour cream help us lose weight and keep our heart healthy.
This sounds ironical, but it has been discovered that those who do diet and avoid those foods end up getting hungry. What happens is that when you conserve energy or burn less energy, you are bound to add more flesh. Many public health authorities want us to practise energy balance, which is a new way to say that you should not take more calories than one expends.
No matter how one counts what he or she eats, it is impossible to determine calories and know when we are over board. No matter how good you are at counting calories, you can’t do it. So its couple of sips of soft drinks and few bites of humburger that can make you add weight. That means it at the point when we eat extra than the body want that the body store excess as fat.
The myth of exercising to reduce weight is really making waves. Exercise is helpful but it is not the main ingredient for fat burning. The funny truth is that the two things we tell people to do in order to lose weight-eat less and exercise more- are the exact two things that make one more hungry. Thus, there is need for balance. If one must exercise, then it should be done moderately so as to allow the body to recover the strenght.
The reality is that insulin is the primary hormone that makes one to add weight, especially one eats food that spikes insulin like bread, biscuits, sweets, soft drinks. It is refined carbohydrates that raise insulin levels in the body. Explained in simple terms, your fat tissue is more like your wallet, and your meals are like going to the ATM. You know how you use the ATM: You put the cash in your wallet and gradually spend it, and when you get too low on cash, you go back to the ATM. It is the insulin that locks the money in your wallet, so you keep going to the ATM, and your fat cells are getting fatter and fatter. More often, you become hungry and you eat again because the insulin can not get at the fatty acids leading to weight gain.
Low carb diet is key if you are to get trimmed. In Africa where stables are more of carbohydrate it is best to choose those with fibre. It is difficult to follow the Atkins diet like eating skinless chicken and green salad, melted mozzarella cheese and all those western diet.
An example of a workable diet is to include eggs more often and cut down on processed foods, especially processed carbohydrate. Complex carbohydrate, and vegetables have more fibre and make you get filled quickly. Instead of Irish potato, go for sweet potatoes, oats that have more fibre. I advise people to eat garri than processed plantain and wheat meals. By the way, processed wheat can worsen the body ails.

By: Kelvin Nengia

Health

Eye Expert Cautions On Rays From Electronics

Published

6 months ago

November 1, 2023

The Tide

An optometrist, Dr. Matthew Daniels says many Nigerians are suffering from refractive eye problem which can be corrected.
Besides, he disclosed that most of the eye problems common these days come from rays from long use of electronic devices.
The one time Chairman of Business Development Committee of the Nigeria Optometery Association(NOA) explained that rays emitted from electronic devices such as phones, television, computers have effects on the eyes.
He urged for caution and toning down of light from phones and computers so as to reduce eye irritation and other eye maladies that may affect sight.
In a chat with The Tide, Dr. Daniels said the refractive eye error maybe long sight or short sight which can be corrected.
However, he decried that most Nigerians do not take the health of their sight seriously and as such, suffer from eye defects which could have been treated without much expenses.
Commenting on the planned program me by the Federal Government to provide eye glasses to Nigerians, Dr Daniels observed that it may be difficult to provide free eye glasses to five million Nigerians.
For him, what the people need is more eye clinics and hospitals at the grassroots, as he lamented that most eye sight challenges are common in the rural areas.

By: Kevin Nengia

Health

WHO Raises Alarm Over Increased Incidence Of TB, Others

Published

7 months ago

September 13, 2023

The Tide

The World Health Organisation(WHO) has raised alarm over increased incidence of tuberculosis, HIV and malaria as it charged member countries to make health an urgent matter of policy focus.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General made the charge at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 78) in New York stressing need to put health for all on the highest political agenda.
WHO’s DG appeal comes as the world faces multiple humanitarian and climate-related crises which are threatening lives and livelihoods around the world.
The world health apex body observed that progress in reducing infant and maternal mortality has stagnated (in some regions, while progress in tackling infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria has also declined.
It noted that many parts of the world are also witnessing rollbacks in sexual and reproductive health and rights, as
access to life-saving tools is becoming uneven across the world, with millions unable to afford or obtain needed care.
In addition it said no communicable diseases and mental disorders, which account for over 70% of deaths globally, threaten social and economic development across the world.
“Ill health robs individuals, families, communities and entire nations of opportunities to grow and flourish,” Dr Tedros said.
The body decried that billions of people cannot access or afford essential health services and as such are exposed to poverty, abd other preventable and treatable diseases like TB.
WHO’s call to accelerate the achievement of health targets comes ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals Summit (SDG Summit) and an unprecedented number of health-focused high-level meetings at UNGA, aimed at strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, delivering universal health coverage (UHC) and ending TB.
As government leaders gather to make commitments around three major health issues, they have a chance to demonstrate that health is an investment, not a cost, and is fundamental to thriving, resilient families, societies and economies.
“If COVID-19 taught us nothing else, it’s that when health is at risk, everything is at risk,” WHO DG said .
Recalling the effect of the Covid19 pandemic, he lamented the enormous economic, social and political upheaval, and effect on progress towards the health-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals.